∼ Day 237 ∼

As the rumbling storm slowly churned the skies above, silence ruled on the ground beneath, the air pregnant with tension. All parties here understood the severity of the situation and where everyone currently stood.

There was the girl and I, the original group, and the newcomers.

Noone here was stupid enough to think that this was simply as two factions facing off against one another as you didn't know when it all would crumble into chaos.

Sharing a glance with the young girl who looked entirely too young to be on a battlefield of ruthless monsters and cruel men, I saw the steel in her hard eyes.

"One half each?" I spoke, to which the girl merely grunted, looking back at our adversaries.

It appeared to be her assent to my proposal, so I readied myself. Just in time too as a colossal ball of flame roaring through the air was suddenly on top of me.

Using Blitz, I disappeared from where I had stood, the ball of fire rocketing the surroundings in the force of a scalding shockwave that expanded in all directions.

I didn't need to worry about either familiar or the girl as they too had easily dodged the attacks, all four of us turning into blurring figures as we closed the distance to our attackers.

Petrifying Gaze stopped the closest enemy, a human bowman who suddenly froze mid-pull, letting the arrow fly loose wildly and miss me. The energy is hidden within the rather small projectile crackled and fizzled as whatever skill it had been infused with didn't finish charging either.

Closing the distance, I grunted in pain and annoyance as another attack from someone else hindered my otherwise lethal strike to the archer's head.

[You have taken 264 damage!]

Using Blitz once again, swapping places with the charging wyvern who had been but a few steps behind me, I let Sombra handle the rapidly retreating archer.

Refocused on the interceptor, I was face-to-face with the shocked pyromancer who stared incredulously at the minimal damage done to my body with his fire lance. I just smirked cruelly at the man who became awashed in fear as the full power of my will slammed against his concentration through Petrifying Gaze and hindering him in any further spell-casting.

My hand, encased in crystalline blood to form a deadly spike, ran through his face and exited out through the back of his skull, skewering his head. Even as flames spewed from the wound, trying to heal the hopelessly lethal injury and attempting to burn my spiked hand, it did nothing to help as they extinguished weakly.

Compared to the soul immolating flames of a god, this fire mage's flames were simply pitiful.

Noting the prompt of his death, I put it away for later notice with the one I had already gotten from my first kill and directed my attention to the multitude of attacks already heading my way. A spume of poison, a lance of miasmic darkness, a hail of daggers that glowed with power, and a blue blast of arcane energy all surged towards me.

Blitz wasn't ready to be activated that rapidly, and even its speed wasn't quick enough for me to evade the fastest of the attacks, so I infused my body with a strand of chaos, taking the brunt of them all.

[You have taken 522 damage!] [You have taken 202 damage!] [You have taken 368 damage!] [You have taken 8 damage!] [You have taken 7 damage!] [You have taken 5 dam...]

Being first showered in the glowing daggers that barely even managed to penetrate my skin, they discharged whatever skill or ability they had been infused with into my body, doing minimal damage as the magical component was nothing in the face of my resistance.

Then came the arcane black of energy and the lance of miasmic darkness, hitting me at practically the same time, both of them meeting the same problem as the daggers' magical power.

Lastly, it was the spume of poison that coated me and seeped into my body and attempted to battle my vitality but quickly became purged as it was even more hopeless to harm my body than the magic itself was. Especially because the poison too was of magical conjuration.

Seeing the horrified expressions on the faces of my assailants, their shock at the sheer lack of damage done to me by their collective efforts to kill me, I couldn't help but smile in satisfaction.

Even more so shocked than just realizing how little damage I had taken was when they saw my injuries stitch themselves back together and heal within a little more than a few moments.

Before the next attack had even been launched, I was in motion, ducking in and out of the guards that had been set up as a frontline, the naga and the turtleman who tried desperately to keep me from reaching the arachnid and elf throwing magic at me.

But with the terrifying end that was Ketsu coming up from the flank and making the naga succumb to the same fate that his orc friend had, the slow turtle beastkin stood no chance to keep me back, and I used Blitz to weave around this swing of his weapon.

As I was surging towards the elf, of whom gave me a deep sense of wrongness, he revealed why - though not exactly how I had expected it. He was a necromancer of some sort, but while he used the vile magics of miasma, he so far hadn't shown any of his undead minions. So when his hand flashed to the odd diamond-shaped incense burned chained to his hip, I was surprised to see it suddenly spew a thick and dark spume of miasmic mist.

The sheer potency of that miasma made me almost retreat in sheer disgust alone as miasma was literally the highest of anathema to my power.

While the energy within my core was chaotic, life, and death - change in essence, miasma was stagnation and perversion of power.

The mist of miasma wasn't hard to see through at all, but what really made me pause were the creatures within. Dark, ghostly non-distinct figures wailed within this mist, their ethereal forms flattering about with haunted expressions on their distorted faces.

Attempting to dodge the aspirations was a hopeless endeavor as they were simply too fast and there were too many of them. I tried warding them off with mana-infused slashes, hoping the chaotic energy to be to counter their lack of physical bodies, but it seemed to have minimal effect as their bodies simply restitched themselves after cleaving their bodies in two.

[You have taken 53 damage!]

As one managed to pass through my guard and my body, I felt a deep chill as some of my vitality seeped away, leaving a deep coldness. The sensation was eerily not painful at all, but more so uncomfortable than most anything else I had felt before.

Unable to hurt neither the apparitions nor the fickle spirit necromancer, I had to turn my attention towards the arachnid as she seemed responsible for keeping the elf out of my reach with some odd skill that allowed her to infuse him with a stimulant rather than poison that made him incredibly fast. Including the now all-encompassing cloud of poison that seemed to only affect me she had cast out to the surroundings which slowed me down, she had to be taken out before I could kill the necromancer slowly seeping away at my vitality.

While my life force was no easy feat to rob away like that, if I didn't change how the fight went, he'd succeed. To me, those ghosts were especially dangerous.

Focusing inward, I called upon as much energy I could, leading the thread of power into my conjuration of Rend.

[Arachne has taken 792 damage!]

She let out a scream that told clearly of the pain she felt as a spike of her own blood weaponized itself and tore through the insides of her bulbous insect-rear.

The injury caused was anything but lethal, however, the lapse of focus allowed me to close the distance between us. I didn't waste even a moment's breath as I swiped an elongated sword of blood at the arachne who instinctively raised her hands in protection of her face.

Slicing right through her hands and sending some fingers flying, my clawed hand flew out to clasp her neck. But just as I was about to rip out her throat, she let out a choked plead.

"No! Please! We can help you!" She cried around the pain, something she apparently wasn't used to from the great agony on her beautiful face.

Taking a moment, I took in her features. Angular and slender, framed by fine and glossy hair than ran to her shoulder blades and accentuated her human parts quite elegantly - I found that calling her both a holy and unholy beauty surprisingly fitting.

She was probably the most beautiful woman I had seen beside the Fae in the first stage of the Trials, but as opposed to her pure perfection, the arachnid had some imperfections like the birthmark at her lip or the faint smattering of freckles that actually made her just that much more enticing and lustful rather than inspiring adoration.

"W-we can work together and take down the human girl - you'll get the heirloom, in-in exchange for our lives!" She pleaded.

Giving a brief glance at the turtleman still occupied with Ketsu who seemingly couldn't do the same to him as he had with the two others, I also spotted the necromancer who seemed to agree with the arachnid's sentiment.

I looked to the girl, also embroiled in battle, three dead corpses at her feet already - though she was in a bad shape as the rest of the enemies had given up on me and ganged up on her.

There was only the briefest of consideration flickering through my mind as I stared into the dark and mesmerizing eyes of the arachnid.

"I don't make deals with necromancers or their friends," I said simply, tearing out the woman's throat before her eyes even managed to go wide in horror.